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The advances in heart rate monitors built into today’s smartwatches, fitness trackers, and other wearable devices can not only make every workout count but could add years to your life.

“Measuring heart rate over time is important because our heart rate changes as our activity levels and our need for oxygen change. And the new tech certainly enables us to do that,” says Life Fitness, a distributor of fitness equipment. “The ability to measure and monitor our heart rate throughout the day, at rest and during exercise, and the depth of data that these devices collect, is the critical factor. They might just help you to uncover some health risks that lie ahead before they turn into serious problems.”

Alexa Tucker writes in Self that these heart rate monitors can also help the average person train harder and smarter.

“You can see in real-time how hard you’re actually working, because it measures how fast your heart is beating,” Pete McCall, M.S., C.S.C.S, told Tucker. “A heart-rate monitor can help keep you on track, so you don’t overdo it with the intensity every single day. Overtraining increases your chance for injury and can hinder your day-to-day performance, and it puts a ton of stress on the body.”

How Heart Monitors Work

The first thing to understand about off-the-shelf heart rate monitors is that while they are useful, they are not a substitute for approved medical devices and you should not use them in place of medical care.

With that being said, advances in wearable tech are helping people hone their workouts and alert them to possible medical issues that otherwise may go unnoticed.

“Heart rate monitors are devices that detect and measure your heart or pulse rate. Thanks to advances in technology, these devices are small, wearable, and many use sensors that are very accurate,” says the Cleveland Clinic.

The Cleveland Clinic says that heart rate monitors can be used for:

• Tracking heart rate during exercise.
  
  
• Monitoring stress and activity levels during the day.
  
  
• Tracking sleep quality at night.
  
  
• Monitoring your vital signs at home, especially if you have certain health conditions or concerns.

Heart rate monitors either detect your heart rate (how many times your heart beats per minute) or pulse rate (how many times per minute your arteries expand because of your beating heart.)

Heart monitors such as chest-band devices, smartwatches, smart rings, and other wearables use two different approaches, according to the Cleveland Clinic, to detect your heart rate or pulse:

• Electrical (electrocardiography): Your heart generates a small electrical current with every heartbeat. Heart rate monitors with electrical detection capabilities can detect and track that current.
• Optical (photoplethysmography): These devices use infrared light to see the expansion of your arteries as your heart pumps blood through them. These devices track your pulse rate, and some can also estimate the oxygen levels in your blood.

Maximizing Your Workouts with Heart Rate Monitors

Life Fitness says that measuring your heart rate when you are exercising vigorously can reveal a lot about your health and fitness.

“Understanding our maximum heart rate (MHR) and keeping tabs on our heart rate during exercise can provide information about our general fitness, our aerobic capacity, and VO2 Max,” says Life Fitness.

Self says that by wearing a heart rate monitor during workouts you can tell if you are pushing hard enough when you need to (during high-intensity intervals) and recovering enough when you need to (during recovery sessions or on lower-intensity days).

“Heart-rate monitors can also be useful if you're training for a long-distance race or event, so you can learn how to pace yourself without burning out. No matter what your goals are, though, wearing a heart-rate monitor can take your fitness to the next level—whether you want to watch your calories burned, check out the intensity of your favorite workouts, create an efficient training plan, or just motivate yourself,” wrote Tucker in Self.

Heart Rate Monitors and Your Resting Heart Rate

You do not need to be training for a triathlon or even working out for your heart rate monitor to provide useful data because it will monitor your resting heart rate throughout the day and night.

“Our resting heart rate can tell us a lot about our health. At rest, your heart is pumping the least amount of blood and oxygen that your body will need at any given point. It’s like our base level heart rate,” says Life Fitness.

Life Fitness says that the average resting heart rate for healthy adults ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute and that it is best to take your resting heart first thing in the morning after a good night’s sleep.

Those beats per minute tell a story, according to Life Fitness, with a study from 2010 finding that those with a resting heart rate of more than 76 beats per minute were 26 percent more likely to have a heart attack or die from one, than those with less than 62 beats per minute.

Heart Rate Monitors Can Alert You to Medical Issues

Heart rate monitors, it can be argued, can add years to your life as it helps you maximize your workouts, and they can prolong your life by alerting you to medical issues.

The Cleveland Clinic, for example, says that you should call your healthcare provider if your heart rate monitor alerts you to unusually fast or slow readings:

• Slower than 60 beats per minute is called bradycardia, which can be dangerous if it keeps your heart from pumping enough blood to meet your body’s needs but can also happen without causing any harmful effects, especially in very physically active people.
  
  
• Faster than 100 beats per minute is called tachycardia, which can start in the upper or lower chambers of your heart and can range from mild to life-threatening.

The Cleveland Clinic also says to contact your healthcare provider if you experience any symptoms of irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia), especially heart palpitations.

You should also go to the hospital or an emergency care facility if you have any symptoms of a heart attack, such as:

• Chest pains (angina)
  
  
• Shortness of breath (dyspnea)
  
  
• Feeling lightheaded or dizzy
  
  
• Fainting or passing out (syncope)

“Heart rate monitors are a useful and accessible tool to help you track your heart’s activity. Depending on the device you pick, you can access a wide range of information and data. That data can help you improve your health, create, and manage an exercise plan and more,” concludes the Cleveland Clinic. “However, heart rate monitors aren’t a substitute for regular visits with a healthcare provider, especially if you think you might have a problem.”